


Snuggle

by daystarsearcher



Category: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Genre: Angst, Gen, Tragedy, misleading title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 09:17:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daystarsearcher/pseuds/daystarsearcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'm going to blame this on the consumption of copious amounts of Red Bull, but really? I'm just evil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snuggle

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not have Criminal Intent. The show, that is. I have had lowercase criminal intent from time to time. In both cases, however, I have not made any money. Also, those false teeth you found in that vat of hydrochloric acid in my closet? I have no idea how they got there.

Human blood, like many other saline solutions, freezes at a temperature of between -2 and -3° C.

Liz Rodgers had not been allowed to do the autopsy. But she would watch.

She owed them her witness.

The thing that had been Goren and Eames lay on the table. It had made a clinking noise when the techs set it down, and Eames' index finger—no, the index finger of the part of the _thing_ that had once been Eames—had snapped off and skittered into the corner, and Rodgers had seen so many things in the course of her career and not batted an eye, but that little cracking sound like someone stepped on a twig made her stumble just a little and shut her eyes, willing her stomach not to leap up through her throat—

The morgue was very, very cold.

The thing that had been Goren and Eames was colder.

The thing had been found in a freezer on the Bancroft-Haynes estate, where her forensic analysis had sent them. Where Goren's quick mouth and Eames' quick trigger finger had been, in the end, not enough.

"This isn't on you, Elizabeth," Danny said from behind her, and she wanted to slug him.

The ears and noses and fingers of the thing were blackened, the skin dead long before the rest of it.

Ambushed. Stripped. Beaten. Raped.

Locked in a working freezer and left to die.

Frostbite occurs during prolonged skin exposure to temperatures of 23° F or below. Blood flow halts in the frostbitten area and said area must be thawed and rewarmed swiftly to prevent tissue death.

They had held each other. They rarely touched, sometimes Goren's hand on Eames' back as he held open the door, sometimes Eames' fingers against Goren's as she handed him a cup of coffee. But they had held each other—Alex's head against Bobby's chest, his lips in her hair, arms wrapped around each other tightly with trust written in every inch of bare skin. Holding each other together even now.

No tears frozen on their cheeks. They each would've wanted to stay strong for the other.

They had held each other in that cold dark place and clung to the last pieces of warmth they could muster and felt each other's breaths grow shorter and shorter--

Signs of suffocation include petechial hemorrhages. Hypothermia is a severe drop in internal body temperature and must be treated before frostbite.

Had they spoken, in those last few moments? Had they gotten to say what they needed to say before—

The stand-in M.E. had to thaw the bodies before cutting them apart to conduct the autopsy. The skin of Goren's hand made a sound like tearing paper as it was ripped from Eames' back, and Rodgers had to bite her fist to keep from shouting,  _No! No, don't make them be alone, they can't be alone—_

But she said nothing, and the room held only the wet sounds of the scalpel slicing into the two halves of the thing that was no longer Goren and Eames.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Oh, I'm sorry, did you look at the title and think this was going to be fluff? Heh heh heh.
> 
> Ao3 Note #1: I imported the original author's notes with the story. Sorry I was a bit of an asshole there. In my defense, I did put it in the correct categories both here and on fanfiction.net.


End file.
